The staff of London’s National Gallery have announced an all-out strike beginning August 17, following weeks of walkouts. [Reuters]

New York City has promised $10 million to Spaceworks, a nonprofit which works to convert old public buildings into affordable studio space for artists, effective in 2017 and 2018. Spaceworks plans to use the money to build 50,000 square feet of art space across two locations in the Bronx. [The Art Newspaper]

Jillian Steinhauer has written an open letter to the Smithsonian, asking the museum to take down all traces of Bill Cosby in its current exhibition “Conversations.” [Hyperallergic]

Brooklyn-based artist and animator Mack Williams has started a petition to add members of Atlanta-based hip-hop duo Outkast to the stone carvings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on Georgia’s Stone Mountain. [CNN]

Pyotr Pavlensky, the Russian performance artist who has drawn attention to the country’s abuses of state power by sewing his lips together, hammering a nail through his scrotum, and cutting off an earlobe, convinced the Russian detective investigating him for vandalism to resign from his post. Furthermore, the detective-turned-lawyer Paul Yasman has requested that the St. Petersburg court allow him to defend the artist. [Hyperallergic]